Daniel Gobay and Matan Klembiap are currently detained at the Jayapura district police station in Papua province. Police officers allegedly tortured them and five other men during interrogation about the whereabouts of two pro-independence activists. They have not received medical treatment and they have not had access to a lawyer since their arrest.

According to credible sources, plainclothes police officers arbitrarily arrested Daniel Gobay and Matan Klembiap on 15 February 2013 in Depapre, along with five other men. They were then forced to strip, were kicked in the face, head and back, and beaten with rattan sticks and wooden blocks. Police officers allegedly pressed the barrels of their guns to their heads, mouth and ears. They were interrogated until late at night and the morning of the following day.

On 16 February, five of the men were released without charge but Daniel Gobay and Matan Klembiap remain in police custody and are reportedly to be charged with “possession of a sharp weapon” under the Emergency Regulation 12/1951.

Demand Daniel and Matan receive medical treatment, lawyers and have their torture claims investigated. Go here to take action on Amnesty’s website.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Australia’s Foreign Minister has responded sympathetically to Fiji’s rejection of a proposed constitution, despite a stinging response from other nations in the region.

Bob Carr says he can see why the military regime rejected elements of the draft.

He says the jury’s still out on whether the constitutional process it’s undertaking is enough to restore Fiji’s reputation in the eyes of the international community.

But an expert on Fiji says Senator Carr doesn’t fully understand what’s happening in the country, and Fijians’ confidence in the process has been shattered.

Lexi Metherell reports.

LEXI METHERELL: Last week Fiji’s military regime threw out the draft constitution created by an Australia and New Zealand-funded commission. The regime says it will re-write it then give it to a hand-picked constituent assembly to formulate a final version.

That move prompted a stinging response from Samoa and from New Zealand’s foreign minister Murray McCully.

MURRAY MCCULLY: The fact that they’ve trashed the work of the commission is pretty unhelpful.

BOB CARR: The notion for example of a largely unelected national people’s assembly comprised principally of non-government organisations sitting alongside the parliament is something I can’t think of enjoying a precedence anywhere else in the constitution of a democratic country.

The recreation of an unelected great council of chiefs would seem to give rise to the suggestion that ethnic divisions in the country were going to be exaggerated by, and entrenched by new constitutional arrangements.

I can find it understandable that the interim government has objected to both these features of the draft constitution presented to it.

BRIJ LAL: Well I think that Mr Carr does not have a full understanding of the realities on the ground.

LEXI METHERELL: Under the draft written by the constitutional commission, the military would have no role in the country’s politics.

Professor of Pacific and Asian History at the ANU, Brij Lal says that’s not what the military wants.

BRIJ LAL: For anyone who understands the country, the outcome is very clear. The military will not have a constitution in which it does not have a visible presence, a voice in the government of the country. What has happened is that the regime in Fiji appointed a commission to draft a new constitution. That draft was supposed to go to a hand-picked constitution assembly which would then finally from that fashion a new constitution.

Now all that has been trashed. People’s trust in the process has been undermined if not shattered.

LEXI METHERELL: But the Foreign Minister Bob Carr is prepared to give the regime time to prove itself.

BOB CARR: I think there have been expressions from the interim government in Fiji that they want Fiji to move beyond the racial divisions that have held the country back in the past and that is something we would welcome. I think it is something the people of Fiji would welcome.

LEXI METHERELL: Do you think though that the process that’s now underway, the appointment of a constituent assembly to discuss a new draft, do you think that this is adequate for Fiji’s reputation to be rehabilitated in the international community’s eyes?

BOB CARR: Well, I think the jury is still out.

BRIJ LAL: Here was a draft constitution on which all the major political parties were united. This was a document that was pointing Fiji in the right direction. That is the jury. There, I think in the end is the most important – the people of Fiji.

LEXI METHERELL: Professor Brij Lal.

BRIJ LAL: If Mr Carr or anyone else thinks that out of this exercise that the regime is doing will come out a fair democratic constitution, then I think they will be in for a huge shock.

The UNHCR has criticized the Gillard government’s ‘Pacific Solution Mark II’ and refused to participate in processing refugees on Nauru and Manus Island. A UNCHR regional representative Rick Towle says it is difficult to make full and credible assessments of refugees in such remote locations, and comments “Australia may choose to transfer physically people to other jurisdictions, but we believe that under international law very clearly Australia is not absolved of its legal responsibilities to protect people through all aspects of the processing and solutions.”

On the 8th April 2011, the US State Department issued a report on the state of human rights in Fiji. The report highlighted many concerns including concerns about detention and fair trials, media freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of movement. The full report can be found here.

See the following SMH article regarding media censorship in Fiji here.

Comments Off on The US State Department produce report detailing continuing problems of human rights in Fiji in 2010

Pre-2009 issues

About us

The Asia Rights Journal was established by a group of academics and human rights activists based in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. The aim of Asia Rights is to share information, resources and opinion about human rights issues in Asia and the Pacific. If you would like to contribute to or comment on the website please contact the editors Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki at tessams@hotmail.com or Emma Campbell at elgc888@yahoo.co.uk.